Monday, November 30, 2015

ISIS jihadis determined to carry out attacks in European cities are entering the continent hidden among migrants, a German police chief says.

Hans-Georg Maasen, a federal police chief, claimed ISIS extremists hardened on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria are blending in with the migrants and are planning 'combat missions' in Europe.

In the wake of the Paris attacks it was revealed several of the gunmen and suicide bombers - who helped slaughter 130 people - had reached the city via Greece posing as asylum seekers.

According to the Austria Press Agency, Mr Maasen said his office was aware of almost 8,000 Islamic radicals in Germany.

He said all of these extremists advocate violence to advance their goals, with some trying to win over migrants, and his office receives one or two 'fairly concrete tips' of planned terrorist activity a week.

He went on to describe ISIS extremists as 'combat-hardened professionals' more dangerous than those from al-Qaeda.

His warnings comes just nine days after it emerged eight migrants have reached Europe using documents almost identical to those carried by one of the Paris suicide bombers.

The passport, found near the body of one of those who participated in the massacre of 130 people, identified him as Syrian.

It showed he claimed asylum on the Greek island of Leros last month with the fake Syrian passport in the name of 25-year-old Ahmad Almohammad.

But nine days ago Serbian police revealed they had arrested a man carrying a Syrian passport which was almost a carbon copy of the one found on the ISIS bomber’s corpse.

It had the same name, date of birth and place of birth. The only difference was the photograph.

Serbian officials said as many as six other men this year had entered the EU with virtually identical passports.

The discovery has heightened fears that all the documents are fakes made by the same forger in the Middle East to dupe authorities into believing the holders are asylum seekers.

And worse, it has sparked concerns that the bogus papers could be in the possession of jihadists now lurking undetected in the EU’s passport-free Schengen travel zone.

The shocking ease with which the terrorists who murdered 130 innocent people in Paris were able to travel across Europe has sparked a renewed debate about the open borders policy.

The development raises fresh worries over the potential security threat posed by 670,000 asylum seekers who have arrived in Greece this year after fleeing war and poverty.

Meanwhile, today Czech President Milos Zeman stated Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka was endangering his country by not fully recognizing the danger asylum-seekers are posing.

In an interview published in Thursday's edition of the Mlada Fronta daily, Zeman say that unlike the prime minister he considers the migrant wave 'an organized invasion'.

More than 400 suspected jihadis have returned to the UK from Syria. More than 100 are being ‘monitored’ by police in London alone, we are told.

‘Hundreds more’ are under surveillance nationwide. Yet only eight have been prosecuted so far, it’s reported. Why so few?

The fact that they will enjoy robust defence advice — paid for out of public funds, of course — is a factor. The police will be reluctant to bring cases that are not water-tight. Some civil rights campaigners feel that returning jihadis should not be prosecuted at all.

The argument is made that these prodigals might redeem themselves by providing valuable information about their erstwhile Islamic State commanders — a somewhat Walt Disney-like scenario. Does it seem believable to you?

Some returning fighters will claim they had joined Syrian opposition groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad. Can we prove otherwise?

Their lawyers can point out that, until recently, at least, Assad was also regarded as our enemy by the Prime Minister, David Cameron. So aren’t Assad’s enemies — the jihadis — the PM’s friend?

In Belgium and France, armed police are busily breaking down doors and dragging alleged Islamic State conspirators off to prison. Soldiers are patrolling the streets of Paris and there’s a three-month state of emergency.

When the fear and anger following the Paris slaughter dies down, as it surely will, we’ll hear again about the great British virtue of tolerance which sets us above cruel and backward peoples elsewhere.

But as the great philosopher Sir Karl Popper — himself a foreigner accepted by the UK and knighted by the Queen after a distinguished career — said in his book, The Open Society And Its Enemies: ‘If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.’

Popper suggests: ‘We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law. And we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.’

We accept the State’s suppression of intolerance when it involves racism. We are emphatically not allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, creed or religion.

Muslims here are protected by such laws like everyone else. It’s why some of them came to the UK in the first place. So why is it so difficult to prosecute those who live here — often claiming welfare benefits — who plot with like-minded fanatics abroad to do us harm and destroy our way of life? We parrot meekly that Islamic State’s murderous discrimination against non-Muslims is a perversion of Islam. But is that entirely true?

In Arab countries such as Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, non-Muslims are openly discriminated against. Not believing in Islam is a crime punishable by death, in law if not always in practice.

Do they hope that we’ll be terrorised into coming around to their point of view one day, which boils down to ‘accept Islam or die’?

Bombing Islamic State terrorists in Syria is justified, but pointless on its own. ISIS has to be encircled and destroyed, in Syria and everywhere else it proliferates.

The nations which have acted as its ‘enablers’ must be tackled, too. Lord West, a former Sea Lord, says: ‘We should confront states such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which have financed ISIS and bought its oil supplies on the black market.’

And here in Britain, surely it isn’t enough to ‘monitor’ those who actively support the aims of Islamic State? Or must we wait until they commit an atrocity before rounding them up? It’s in the interests of the overwhelming Muslim majority here who mean us no harm to remove those in their midst who give active support to Islamic terrorists.

That majority must understand — as Sir Karl Popper put it — that unlimited tolerance leads to its disappearance. Isn’t escaping intolerance the reason they, or their ancestors, came here in the first place?

It’s at times like this that I envy Roman Catholics. There was no airy-fairy Welbyspeak from Pope Francis, who said that using God’s name to justify the massacre was equivalent to blasphemy.

French ban on Muslim headscarves is upheld by human rights court after woman sacked for refusing to remove hers loses appeal

Europe's leading human rights court upheld the France's ban on Islamic headscarves in the case of a Muslim social worker who was sacked because she refused to take hers off.

Christiane Ebrahimian lost her job at a psychiatric department of a hospital in Nanterre because patients complained about her refusal to remove her head covering.

She lost her appeal at the European Court of Human Rights today.

The French government bars public employees from displaying their religious beliefs on the job.

In 2004, the country banned the wearing of 'conspicuous religious symbols' including the Muslim face veil, known as the niqab.

The ban was eventually extended to schoolchildren and even parents who wanted to accompany classes on trips.

In 2010, the country banned face coverings of all kinds, including masks, niqabs and the full body dress known as a burqa, in public spaces 'except under specified circumstances'.

Ms Ebrahimian was born in 1951 and lived in the capital Paris at the time of the ruling, according to Dr Georg Neureither who founded the online religious platform, Religion Weltanschaaung Recht.

He said she was recruited to the hospital on a fixed term contract as a social worker. On December 11, 2000, she was told that her contract would be terminated because patients complained she would not take off her headscarf.

In May 2000, the hospital wrote to her to remind her that the 'the secular State... prevented public officials from enjoying the right to manifest their religious beliefs while discharging their functions'.

It added: 'Wearing a visible symbol of religious affiliation constituted a breach of a public official's duties.'

A local government in Switzerland imposed a similar rule this week by threatening to issue fines of up to £6,500 to women caught wearing the burqa in shops, restaurants or public buildings.

Officials in the state of Ticino, southern Switzerland, approved the ban after a referendum in September 2013 which saw two out of three voters backing the move.

Ticino government had wanted to ban burqas and niqabs as well as masks worn by demonstrators and balaclavas, it was reported.

The government must reconsider its decision to take an extra 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq in light of the Paris attacks, Liberal backbencher Cory Bernardi has said.

Bernardi told ABC TV on Monday he supported the initial cabinet decision to offer an additional 12,000 visas to refugees from Syria and Iraq, on top of the 13,750 existing humanitarian visa places.

But since this month’s attacks in the French capital, Bernardi has changed his mind.

“I do think that cabinet now needs to reconsider the decision to take in 12,000 additional refugees on the basis of evidence that’s come to light over the last week,” he said.

“In our previous refugee intake we’ve had examples where people who have been accepted as refugees have gone on to commit terrorist acts or planned terrorist acts in this country. Why do we think that suddenly this is going to be any different?”

Bernardi said the screening process for refugees was open to inaccuracies, as security agencies were unable to go to Syria to do background checks. He also objected to handing over the decision of who could come to Australia to the “bunch of unelected bureaucrats” at the United Nations refugee agency.

“A lot of the most persecuted minorities in the Middle East – the Jews, the Christians, the Yazidis – don’t even go to UNHCR camps, they don’t register there because they’re scared for their lives by the Muslim communities there,” Bernardi said.

He said he wanted a rethink of the way the whole system worked.

“I do believe we should be reassessing our refugee humanitarian intake,” the Liberal senator said, adding his views were shared by many Australians.

“For many years I’ve been voicing my concerns about extremist elements in the country and the lack of political will to confront that and of course I’ve been called all sorts of names for my trouble by my colleagues and the media,” Bernardi said.

“But the point is I’ve been right about it and it is now a widespread community sentiment. We have extremist elements at work in this country. Why risk bringing in more to add to their ranks, even potentially, and bear the financial and social burden that comes with that?”

Bernardi’s call to axe the 12,000 refugee intake was promptly shot down by the attorney general, George Brandis, who reiterated the government’s determination to proceed during a statement to the Senate condemning the Paris attacks.

“These attacks give no reason to reduce our commitment to helping those who flee the barbarism of Isil and other terrorists,” Brandis said during question time on Monday. “Indeed, they demonstrate more graphically why it is necessary, both to stand resolutely against Isil, and also, to help as best we can its many innocent victims, including the 12,000 Syrian refugees we have rightly committed to take.”

The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, told the House of Representatives’ question time 2,800 Syrian and Iraqi refugees were in the process of having health and security checks as part of the 12,000 intake.

“The Australian government has in place the most robust security screening measures in relation to those coming in under the humanitarian program and we will not resile from that one bit,” Dutton said.

He said the government would cast aside any application of those seeking to come into Australia under the humanitarian visa system if the application presented security concerns.

The first five of the 12,000 intake, a Syrian family, arrived in Perth last week, in line with the government’s promise to resettle the first group by Christmas.

But the New South Wales refugee resettlement coordinator, Peter Shergold, told ABC radio on Monday morning the lengthy security process refugees had to undertake could mean the bulk of the 12,000 visa holders would not be resettled until 2017.

“I’m working on the basis that the vast majority will come next year, in 12 or 18 months, not six months,” he said. “I think it’s appropriate that screening, security, character checks are all done before they arrive.”

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Friday, November 27, 2015

Like Most People, President Obama Gets The Crusades Wrong

Greg Scandlen, below, makes many good points in telling us what the crusades were really about -- points which are accurate and well-informed as far as I can see. And I speak as someone who has made something of a study of the Byzantine period. He points out the basic truth that the Crusades were a response to the Muslim invasion of Christian lands, not an invasion of Muslim lands. The crusaders simply took back lands that had belonged to Christendom for a thousand years -- Biblical lands.

But the main point surely is to ask: WHY is something that happened a thousand years ago any excuse for something happening today? Why are the crusades any excuse for anti-Western violence by Muslims today? No-one would normally think that a sane proposal to make but when you are dealing with Muslims and their apologists reason flies out the window. If it were sane we would have Britons going to Germany and bombing Germans because Germans invaded Britain a thousand years ago.

The whole idea is a version of punishing children for the misdeeds of their parents, which is generally recognized as a breach of natural law: You should not be punished for something you didn't do

If we were to use Muslim reasoning, we should be making random raids on Muslim lands to steal their property, kill their men and rape their women -- because that is what the Muslim corsairs of North Africa did to coastal Europe right up until the 19th century -- until finally terminated by the French conquest of Algiers in 1830.

In light of President Obama’s recent remarks comparing the brutality of the Islamic State to the Crusades, it might be time to take a fresh look at those events. Were they really the one-sided Dark Ages barbarism we have been taught? Were they an early manifestation of Western imperialism and global conquest?

In his landmark book, “God’s Battalions” (HarperOne 2009), Baylor University social sciences professor Rodney Stark suggests otherwise. It is a well-researched chronicle, including 639 footnotes and a bibliography of about 300 other works, yet reads like an adventure story full of military strategy and political intrigue.

What Prompted the Crusades

He begins in the final years of Mohammed and describes how a newly united Arab people swept through (Zoroastrian) Persia and the (Orthodox Christian) Byzantine- controlled areas of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa. (Byzantine refers to the Greek-speaking eastern remainder of the Roman Empire.) Eventually Arabs took over control of the Mediterranean islands, most of Spain, and the southern part of Italy, and even reached as far as 150 miles outside of Paris before being turned back by the Franks, or early French.

The Muslims were brutal in their conquered territories.

The Muslims were brutal in their conquered territories. They gave pagans a choice of converting to Islam or being killed or enslaved. Jews and Christians (other People of the Book) were usually but not always treated somewhat better, and allowed to retain their beliefs but under conditions of Sharia subjugation.

But the Muslim-held territories were not monolithic. Stark writes:

"Perhaps the single most remarkable feature of the Islamic territories was the almost ceaseless internal conflict; the intricate plots, assassinations, and betrayals form a lethal soap opera. North Africa was frequently torn by rebellions and intra-Islamic wars and conquests. Spain was a patchwork of constantly feuding Muslim regimes that often allied themselves with Christians against one another."

Not surprisingly, there was intense Christian resistance and determination to take back lost territories. Especially effective were the Normans and the Franks in Spain and Italy.

The Golden Middle Ages Belonged to Europeans

Western scholars have often characterized this clash of cultures as an Islamic Golden Age versus a European Dark Age, but Stark demolishes this as a myth. He says the best of the Islamic culture was appropriated from the people Muslims conquered—the Greeks, Jews, Persians, Hindus, and even from heretical Christian sects such as the Copts and Nestorians.

He quotes E.D. Hunt as writing, “the earliest scientific book in the language of Islam [was a] treatise on medicine by a Syrian Christian priest in Alexandria translated into Arabic by a Persian Jewish physician.” Stark writes that Muslim naval fleets were built by Egyptian shipwrights, manned by Christian crews, and often captained by Italians. When Baghdad was built, the caliph “entrusted the design of the city to a Zoroastrian and a Jew.” Even the “Arabic” numbering system was Hindu in origin.

And, while it is true that the Arabs embraced the writings of Plato and Aristotle, Stark comments,

"However, rather than treat these works as attempts by Greek scholars to answer various questions, Muslin intellectuals quickly read them in the same way they read the Qur’an – as settled truths to be understood without question or contradiction…. Attitudes such as these prevented Islam from taking up where the Greeks had left off in their pursuit of knowledge."

Meanwhile, back in Europe was an explosion of technology that made ordinary people far richer than any people had ever been. It began with the development of collars and harnesses that allowed horses to pull plows and wagons rather than oxen, doubling the speed at which people could till fields. Plows were improved, iron horseshoes invented, wagons given brakes and swivel axels, and larger draft horses were bred. All this along with the new idea of crop rotation led to a massive improvement in agricultural productivity that in turn led to a much healthier, larger, and stronger population.

Technology was also improving warfare with the invention of the crossbow and chain mail. Crossbows were far more accurate and deadly than conventional archery, and could be fired with very little training. Chain mail was almost impervious to the kind of arrows in use throughout the world. Mounted knights were fitted with high-back saddles and stirrups that enabled them to use more force in charging an opponent, and much larger horses were bred as chargers, giving the knights a height advantage over enemies. Better military tactics made European armies much more lethal. Stark writes:

"It is axiomatic in military science that cavalry cannot succeed against well-armed and well-disciplined infantry formations unless they greatly outnumber them…. When determined infantry hold their ranks, standing shoulder to shoulder to present a wall of shields from which they project a thicket of long spears butted in the ground, cavalry charges are easily turned away; the horses often rear out of control and refuse to meet the spears."

In contrast, Muslim warriors were almost exclusively light cavalry, riding faster but lighter horses bareback with little armor, few shields, and using swords and axes. Their biggest advantage was their use of camels, which made them much more mobile than foot soldiers and gave them the ability to swoop in and out of the desert areas to attack poorly defended cities.

Muslims Slaughter, Rape, and Pillage

These differences provided Crusader armies with huge advantages, but what would prompt hundreds of thousand Europeans to leave their homes and travel 2,500 miles to engage an enemy is a desert kingdom—especially after the Muslim conquest of Europe had been turned back?

There had been long-festering concern about the fate of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. After his conversion to Christianity in the early 300s, the Roman Emperor Constantine built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the site of what was believed to be Jesus’ tomb, and other churches in Bethlehem and on the Mount of Olives. These sites prompted a growing number of European pilgrims to visit the Holy Land, including Saint Jerome, who lived in Bethlehem for the last 32 years of his life as he translated the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into Latin. By the late fifth century, Stark reports, more than 300 hostels and monasteries offered lodging to pilgrims in Jerusalem alone.

But in 638 Jerusalem surrendered to Muslim invaders, and mass murders of Christian pilgrims and monks became commonplace. Stark includes a list of select atrocities in the eight and ninth centuries, but none worse than the some 5,000 German Christians slaughtered by Bedouin robbers in the tenth century.

Throughout this period, control of Palestine was contested by several conflicting Muslim groups. Stark writes, “In 878 a new dynasty was established in Egypt and seized control of the Holy Land from the caliph in Baghdad.” One hundred years later, Tariqu al-Hakim became the sixth caliph of Egypt and initiated an unprecedented reign of terror, not just against Christians but against his own people as well. He burned or pillaged some 30,000 churches, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the tomb beneath it.

Soon enough, newly converted Turkish tribes came out of the north to seize Persia and Baghdad (by 1045) and press on to Armenia, overrunning the city of Ardzen in 1048, where they murdered all the men, raped the women, and enslaved the children. Next they attacked the Egyptians, in part because the Turks were Orthodox Sunnis and the Egyptians were heretical Shiites. While the Turks did not succeed in overthrowing the Egyptians, they did conquer Palestine, entering Jerusalem in 1071. The Turks promised safety to the residents of Jerusalem if they surrendered the city, but broke this promise and slaughtered the population. They did the same in Ramla, Gaza, Tyre, and Jaffa.

Emperor Alexius Pleads for Help

Finally, they threatened Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Emperor Alexius Comnenus wrote to Pope Urban II in 1095, begging for help to turn back the Turks. This was remarkable given the intense hostility between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Perhaps the pope saw an opportunity to unite or at least reduce tensions between the two Christian churches, but he responded with a call to create an army that would go to the Middle East.

I am not going to regurgitate all the battles of the Crusades themselves. It is a fascinating history well worth studying in part for its parallels and lessons for today. Let’s just say that the Crusaders were extremely effective militarily, often defeating far larger Muslim armies, despite having traveled some 2,500 miles into an alien desert climate. Their biggest enemies were disease, starvation, and political betrayal. Plus, the Crusades were expensive and home countries grew weary of paying the taxes needed to support them (sound familiar?)

The Crusaders ended up establishing their own kingdoms in the Holy Land, which lasted for about 200 years or, as Stark notes, almost as long as the United States has existed; but without ongoing support from Europe they could not survive constant attacks from the Muslims.

So, what to make of all this?

The current idea that Jews in Israel are usurping the rights of indigenous people is nonsense. This has always been a hotly contested area. In the Old Testament, the Jews wrested control from the Canaanites, then were overrun by the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, then the Persians, then the Greeks, then the Romans. The Romans of Jesus’ time were displaced by the Greek Byzantine Empire, then replaced by the Arabs, then the Egyptians, then the Turks, and finally by the British. For most of human history the wealth of a society was created by conquest and plunder. It is hardly unique to Christians, and certainly not to Jews.

The Crusaders were unique in that they did not seek to plunder or enslave.

Actually, the Crusaders were unique in that they did not seek to plunder or enslave. They didn’t even try to forcibly convert anyone to Christianity. Their sole interest was to protect the pilgrims and Christian holy sites. They sometimes sacked cities that refused to provide food to a hungry army, but they didn’t take riches back to Europe. There were few riches to be found. Rather than exploiting indigenous resources to benefit Europe, Europe sent money and resources to the Middle East. Pilgrims were quite lucrative for host countries, just as tourism is today.

War was a nasty and brutal business at the time, and had been for all of recorded history. Cities fortified themselves as protection against invading armies. A siege of a city meant surrounding the area and cutting off supplies until the population surrendered, often by starving. In the Bible, II Kings 6:24-33 relates the story of the siege of Samaria, in which two starving women agree to kill and eat their sons.

The rule of war at the time was that, if a city surrendered, the population would be spared, but if it resisted and the invading army had to take it by force all the inhabitants would be killed or enslaved. But Stark notes that Muslim armies often violated even this rule—promising sanctuary, then slaughtering the population that surrendered. (Before we get too smug and condescending about the savagery of these ancients, let’s not forget the rocket bombing of London, the firebombing of Dresden, and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a mere 70 years ago.)

One way in which Muslim fighters today have advanced over their forebears is that during the Crusades they did not adopt new tactics to counter the technological advantage of the Europeans. They never used crossbows or shielded infantry, even after several hundred years of fighting. Today, Muslim warriors quickly evolve to make the most of Western technology, although they still never seem to develop anything of their own.

An Enduring Clash Between Inquiry and Submission

One final thought on this. As Stark indicates above, there is in too many Muslim countries a sense of obedience that precludes robust debate or new ideas, let alone technological innovation. In his classic, “The World is Flat,” Thomas Friedman quotes Osama bin Laden as saying,

"It is enough to know that the economy of all Arab countries is weaker than the economy of one country that had been part of our (Islamic) world when we used to truly adhere to Islam. That country is the lost Andalusia. Spain is an infidel country, but its economy is stronger that our economy because the ruler there is accountable. In our countries, there is no accountability or punishment, but there is only obedience to the rulers and prayers of long life for them." (pp. 400-401)

Friedman confirms that this is based on a 2002 report, the first Arab Human Development Report. This report, written by Arabs, found that Spain had a larger gross domestic product than all 22 Arab states combined!

I think Stark is closer to the mark than bin Laden. The problem is a cultural way of thinking that starts with the Qur’an and the Prophet and emphasizes unquestioning obedience. The very name of the religion, Islam, means “submission.” The thinking of bin Laden that emphasizes punishing poor rulers is a complete misunderstanding how progress is made. European cultures place a high value on questioning everything, even the divinity of Jesus Christ. Certainly there have been exceptions to this, but in the sweep of history it is an unmistakable trait.

So we have perhaps the starkest conflict of worldviews imaginable: on one hand, a robust and virtually unlimited spirit of inquiry, and on the other a fervent dedication to universal obedience and submission. How this plays out is the story of our times.

Marty Skinner asks: Syria has had a civil war for almost 5 YEARS. Why all the “refugees “NOW and why so all of a SUDDEN and why in such VAST NUMBERS?

With an Honors degree in History and a lifelong student of the subject, I smell a rat. This is a highly organized, well oiled, mobilized invasion of Muslims and Jihadists into the Western World. It’s been in their plan for a long time. Momar Gadhafi predicted and explicitly stated that Muslim domination of Europe would happen without a conventional war and he said it 30 years ago. 95% of these economic “refugees” many who have cellphones are men between the fighting ages of 20 and 40. Very few women and children from everything I’ve seen.

Odd that the 5 wealthiest Arab States including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait are taking “no refugees” thanks and feel quite self righteous about it. No guilt what so ever? They are even laughing at us for doing so.

Ask yourself, why would Germany Belgium, Holland, France, Sweden and others want to destroy their own cultures from within? It doesn’t make any sense? If this keeps up Europe will be burning daily within a very short few years if not months. Civil war in the streets between civilizations. Muslims vs Kefirs, that is to say, everyone who is not a Muslim.

Unfortunately, the reality is that Muslims are just not like any other immigrants. They don’t want to assimilate, they want to set up separate enclaves and implement Sharia Law. Another problem is that while the civilized West rightly abhors violence, conversely Muslims daily display their love of violence. They live it and embrace it. In many Muslim countries public beheadings and stoning to death for adultery for example. It’s a part of their culture precisely because Islam is, dare I say it, a death cult.

Islam is a supremacist, totalitarian, bigoted, fascist political ideology masquerading as a religion. It literally means “submission”. The Quran MANDATES death for blasphamy, for adultery, for apostasy, for family honor, for being gay, Jewish or a Kafer as well as ten other “crimes” many not even considered to be so in the West. Death for drinking alcohol or taking illegal drugs for example. Why let in vast numbers of these brainwashed people especially men of that age when past experience has already demonstrated the tragedy, not to mention the financial, social, and political costs of rampant multiculturalism in Europe. Ordinary citizens are against this immigration but strangely, their governments are not?

Someone or some organization is pulling some strings here is what I see. Is this invasion part of the New World Order’s plan to depopulate the planet? Maybe there’s not even any such an organization but it’s all over U-tube and other social media. The major media are implicit in selling gullible citizens of the West the righteousness of the “refugees” cause and openly siding against Western culture.

One drowned child’s picture in the right places sparks outrage and sympathy world wide for the movement and resettlement of vast numbers of Muslims. However the implementation of Sharia Law, No Go Zone ghettos in most countries in Europe and Muslim rape gangs go unreported. In radical Islamist countries honor killings, beheadings, stoning’s, cutting off limbs, whipping and torture, pedophilia, child bride marriages, rape and misogyny go unreported DAILY and are dismissed as culturally ingrained.

Where is the indignity and the outrage over people doing this every day to their own populations? Yet a staged picture a drowned baby on a beach sparks a world outcry? Muslim birthrates are 8 children per family while Europeans average 1.4. When these current millions bring in their multiple wives, children and extended families 85% of whom live on state benefits (England’s experience) you can multiply their number by at least 10x, maybe 20x or even more.

By 2050 Europe will be Muslim dominated just by demographics alone. When their numbers are sufficient they will legally vote in their own kind and then Sharia Law. Europe as we know it will be lost forever. Two thousand years of civilization will be destroyed by the same fanatical bearded, bigoted, brutal, boneheaded, belligerent bastards who are now slaughtering their own kind and blowing up ancient and irreplaceable world heritage buildings, monuments, books, manuscripts and other historically significant art treasures in Iraq, Syria and other conquered territories.

Canada (America) should not get sucked into this quagmire of political correctness just to show how polite, civilized. politically correct and Canadian we are. We should learn a lesson from our Australian counterparts.

Folks around Salem, Virginia, were ready to jingle the government’s bells after they implemented a ban on Christmas trees and religious Christmas carols in the public spaces of the local VA hospital.

The holiday hullabaloo began last week when workers received an email announcing that Christmas trees would no longer be allowed in public spaces at the Salem Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

“Trees (regardless of the types of ornaments used) have been deemed to promote the Christian religion and will not be permitted in any public areas this year,” the email stated.

According to the federal government’s telling of the Christmas story, not only did the three wise men delivered gold, frankincense and myrrh, they also brought along a Douglas fir adorned with sparkling lights.

The VA also warned employees that “public areas may only be decorated in a manner that is celebratory of the winter season.”

In other words, candy canes are good, the Baby Jesus is bad.

“Displays must not promote any religion,” they noted.

The VA went so far as to tell workers what kind of “holiday” music was permissible according to government standards.

“Music travels and should be secular (non-religious) and appropriate to the work environment,” the email stated.

The VA decided to go into full Grinch-mode and ban visiting entertainers from warbling any Christmas carol that included the words “Christ” or “Christmas.”

“They told me I could sing ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ but I couldn’t sing about Christ,” Pastor John Sines, Jr. told me. “I couldn’t sing about anything that had the word Christmas in it. I could sing what they referred to as ‘holiday’ songs.”

The Rev. Sines, the pastor at Rock Pike Baptist Church in Forest, Virginia, was a bit flustered by the rules. All he wanted to do was entertain the veterans. “My agenda wasn’t so I could push Jesus on the veterans,” he said. “I just wanted to honor the veterans and to say thank-you.”

So the good reverend politely told the VA Hospital that he was not going to abide by the rules. “I let those folks know I wasn’t going to be bullied into their way of thinking,” he said. “We’re rednecks. We don’t have no problem standing our ground.”

Pastor Sines said he wasn’t trying to cause any trouble — he just wanted to do what the Constitution allowed him to do. “I have a Constitution that protects my freedom and I have God who said He would protect me from everything else,” the pastor told me.

In addition to Pastor Sines, the VA had to contend with outraged employees and veterans and the local townsfolk. So on Friday, they reached a compromise.

Pastor Sines said he was re-invited to perform and Christmas trees will once again be allowed in the public spaces — so long as other faiths are also represented.

That includes “the Jewish Menorah, or Hanukkah Lamp, and the Kwanzaa Mkeka (decorative mat) or Kinara (candleholder).”

They cited VA Directive 0022, titled, “Religious Symbols in Holiday Displays in VA Facilities.” The directive states that religious symbols may only be allowed in a public area if they display does not favor one religion over another, and conveys a primarily secular message.

So the only way folks can celebrate Christmas is if they also celebrate Kwanzaa and Hanukkah.

“This compromise allows for the Salem VAMC to be in full compliance with Federal mandates that prohibit US government facilities, including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, from ‘favoring one religion over another’ while providing the diversity and flexibility for employees and Veterans to celebrate the holidays according to their individual faith structure,” the VA stated.

Sounds to me like somebody’s been smoking too much mistletoe.

The federal government may cite VA directive 0022 for its definition of Christmas, but I prefer to cite the holy Bible. And the Good Book declares that Jesus is the Reason for the Season, not a decorative mat.

Sen. Lankford: People of Faith Targeted with a New ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) spoke out Thursday on his concerns for religious liberty in America, especially in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing same-sex marriage and the recent case of a football coach placed on paid leave for praying publicly after games.

“People of faith in the workplace and in public settings have become the new individuals who are targeted towards don’t ask don’t tell: If you have faith, don’t tell anyone, and don’t ask anyone if you have faith, and if you have it, don’t live it out publicly, because people don’t want to see it,” Lankford said at a Family Research Council event on defending religious liberty.

He voiced concern over the implications of the legalization of same-sex marriage for people of faith as well as concern over the “undercurrent of conversations” with the assumption that if you’re for religious liberty “you’re exclusive, you are divisive, you’re a person that needs to be isolated.”

Lankford gave some examples of recent challenges to freedom of religion, citing the example of Bremerton High School assistant coach Joe Kennedy, who was placed on paid administrative leave by his school district last month for praying on the field after football games.

He said that the school district in this instance “set a new principle that is very interesting for us as we deal with the issue of religious liberty.”

“The new principle that the school district set was: a school district employee cannot have a visual display of faith,” Lankford said, “because if they can see you practicing your faith, then they might take that as the school district establishment of faith.

“It’s an odd statement for them to make that no court has ever stood up but for this district they’re trying to push this one principle,” he said.

Lankford went on to argue that “universities in the country right now are dealing with a new norm as well” following the same-sex marriage ruling.

“A university in my state this year closed married student housing - closed it - understanding full well that there were gay students that would apply to the school and would immediately say I want to get in to married student housing,” Lankford explained.

“Because of the oncoming onslaught of lawsuits, they knew they would face and where they were as a school, they chose to just say we won’t offer married student housing at all,” he said.

“I don’t criticize them for that,” Lankford added. “They’re trying to figure out how do we actually function under a nebulous new court ruling.

“This is not a settled issue in America, and the way the Supreme Court settled this, it will not be a settled issue 40 years from now,” he emphasized regarding the same-sex marriage ruling.

“What is unresolved and what will be the unpacking now - and I think it’ll be first in the universities - is trying to force universities to be able to give up faith principles,” Lankford said.

“The weapons that they have in their tool box for the federal government is accreditation, is Pell Grants, and student loans,” he warned, “They have all three of those weapons in their tool box and say if you don’t do XYZ in your university and recognize XYZ, we’ll take away accreditation, student loans, and Pell Grants and your university’s shut.

"Very few universities could survive that,” Lankford said.

“That’s the kind of stuff that accelerates now after this summer’s decision,” he concluded. “It’s the yes you can have any opinion you want as long as it’s ours.”

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

A career criminal nicknamed 'Monster' who mowed down a five-year-old boy in front of his mother has been jailed more than 10 years after the schoolboy's death.

Nawnee Mackin, of Manchester, knocked down and killed little Samuel Walker as the youngster crossed the road with his mother and sister.

Mackin then 23 - who had no licence or insurance - then fled the scene in a Mitsubishi Gallant which was used as a 'pool car' for the estate where he lived.

He was jailed for nine years today for causing death by dangerous driving after being found guilty at Manchester Crown Court.

The case was reopened on the 10th anniversary of Samuel's death in 2013 and Mackin was later identified as the driver of the Mitsubishi which had been taken for a joyride around the Merseybank Estate in Chorlton. He was also picked out by Samuel's mother Jacqueline Tocmak in an identity parade.

The court heard that Samuel had been crossing Hardy Lane in Chorlton in February 2003 with his 11-year-old sister - who also witnessed him being struck, as they made their way to his grandmother's house. He was thrown up onto the car's bonnet and killed instantly days before his sixth birthday.

Prosecutor Mr Henry Blackshaw said that Mackin had been seen 'wheel-spinning' and driving 'aggressively' before the collision.

Tyres had been heard 'screeching' and his speed had been estimated at being between 40 and 50 mph.

Mackin - who had 30 previous offences on his record - drove from the scene after failing to stop and hiding his face as he went around a corner. The car was found abandoned after being reported stolen.

Mrs Tocmak said she never gave up on finding the man responsible for her son's death and would have 'fought for justice until the day I died'.

In a victim impact statement read to the court she said: 'Samuel was a wonderful child, he was bright and funny and he had a loving personality. He was observant and intelligent. As well as being my son he was my best friend.

'He was and always will be my angel. The day Samuel was killed my heart was ripped out. It is every parent's nightmare to lose a child.

'I have missed out on so many of the things that we as parents take for granted. My life was never the same again. He left my son in the road.

'There is not a day I do not think of Samuel. I often relive the events of that day. His sister then aged 11 saw him die. Twelve years later she still cries herself to sleep. Getting justice for Samuel has brought me a step closer for closure for my family and I.'

In passing sentence Judge Andrew Blake said it had been a 'tragic, tale of wanton driving'.

The judge said: 'You killed that little boy, something which you must have known was highly likely almost immediately. Nonetheless you drove on in the hope you would get away with it.

'You ploughed right through the group hitting Sam who at the last moment turned back towards his mother no doubt sensing the danger.'

The judge added that he had been witnessed committing the crime but was not reported to the police because of the 'moral code against criminals of no grassing'.

He added: 'This is as bad a case of death by dangerous driving as I have had the misfortune to deal with. The wanton driving, the callous disregard for life and the carefully orchestrated cover up are all matters which aggravate the offence.'

It may have been a deliberate sick joke or just another irony of history. But either way, it seemed symbolic that two of the terror attacks in Paris, including the bloodiest assault at the Bataclan theatre, took place on Boulevard Voltaire.

That Parisian thoroughfare is named after the eighteenth-century revolutionary writer Francois-Marie Arouet, known by his pen name Voltaire, who is associated with all the values that those Islamist terrorists despise. Most famously, Voltaire is widely credited with the historic declaration (actually formulated by his biographer Evelyn Beatrice Hall as a summation of his views) that ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’. Those words ring down the centuries, encapsulating the Enlightenment ideals of free speech and tolerance with which IS and its ilk are at war today.

The appearance of the name Voltaire in the midst of last Friday’s slaughter was a reminder of that which we should hold dear in these times of conflict. It should also serve as a reminder that free speech remains the best weapon we have to defeat the enemies of freedom. That has often been forgotten in the rush to suppress ‘dangerous’ words and ideas in the aftermath of the latest Paris outrage, and of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in January.

This war is not only a military conflict over territory in the Middle East. It is a cultural and political battle for the future of the West itself, for the soul of an ostensibly free and civilised society. The danger is not that IS or similar will destroy our freedoms – no terrorist has the power to do that. The danger is that our fearful response to terror will itself further undermine freedom; that we will not simply lose this war, but surrender without a fight.

Reactions to Paris have already illustrated the pusillanimous attitude that prevails towards liberties in general and free speech in particular among the West’s elites. They begin by reaffirming the need to defend our freedoms and values in principle. Then they swiftly cut to the chase and start attacking freedom of speech in practice.

Thus on Monday, the French authorities announced that they had launched more than 150 raids on ‘militant targets’ – not only to hunt for armed terror suspects, but also to round up people who espouse dangerous ideas. France’s prime minister Manuel Valls said that the government was using its special powers under the state of emergency ‘to question people who are part of the radical jihadist movement… and all those who advocate hate of the republic’. Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said this offensive was the start of a crackdown that would lead to the ‘dissolution’ of ‘hate-preaching mosques’ across the country.

These raids followed on from the French authorities’ post-Charlie Hebdo campaign to silence ‘hate speech’ attributed to Islamist extremists and ‘Islamophobic’ racists alike. The crackdown involves new measures against ‘hatred online’, the deportation of radical preachers and tougher legal penalties for hate speech and racism.

After the Charlie Hebdo massacre in January and the related murders at a Parisian Jewish supermarket, notorious anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala was arrested and convicted of ‘condoning terrorism’ for tweeting ‘I feel like Charlie Coulibaly’ – a mash-up of ‘Je suis Charlie’ with the name of the kosher supermarket killer, Amedy Coulibaly. Ironic joke or attempted justification for violence, it was only words, and only one word – Coulibaly – made it controversial. Yet it earned Dieudonné a suspended jail sentence. The French authorities thus made clear that they would fight to the death for the right of people to say things of which the government and the judges approve.

In the UK, the official response to Friday’s slaughter in Paris was to affirm the British state’s support for freedom, while warning of the dangers of taking free speech too literally and speaking out of turn. One foolish woman who posted on Facebook that her Oxfordshire beauty salon would no longer accept bookings ‘from anyone from the Islamic faith’ was not only pilloried by social-media users but also reported to the police and arrested for publishing ‘written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting with the intention of stirring up racial hatred’. Which might seem a heavy-handed state response for advertising your reluctance to do somebody’s nails.

Meanwhile Brit comedian Jason Manford’s Facebook account was suspended after he posted that the Paris attackers were ‘Fucking cowards. Slaughtering innocent unarmed people for what? In whose name? Cos I’ve got news for you, if you think your “god” is gonna reward you for this type of atrocity then your god is a massive cunt. You are a shit stain on all of humanity.’ Harsh but fair some might think, but apparently enough to have Facebook reaching for the ‘Dislike – and Take Down’ button.

Slightly higher up in the UK cultural stratosphere, Economist writer Edward Lucas penned a classic piece of contemporary nonsense in which he effectively argued that in order to defend our freedoms, we must ‘compromise’ (aka sacrifice) some of them, including free speech. Civilisation, declared Lucas, ‘is a cause. We should fervently sing its praises, practise its principles at home and promote them abroad’. And how should we ‘practise its principles’? By accepting that we will have fewer freedoms and more constraints on democracy. And by purging our enemies from ‘social media or the comment fields of mainstream news organisations’. Of course Lucas insists that his proposal ‘does not constrain free speech’ – a sure sign these days that it would do precisely that.

Meanwhile, a 21-year-old toddler from Todmorden in West Yorkshire was arrested for posting an infantile Facebook rant in praise of the terror attacks. The unnamed idiot wrote that ‘My brothers did well in Paris. Now we have proved that there’s a bit of intelligence, planning and synchronisation going into our killings. WE ARE ISIS, THIS IS OUR TIME NOW. Keep your eyes on Manchester, AALUUACKHBAAR! Rip Jihadi John.’

His post met with a robust response from other Facebook users, and disappeared after 45 minutes. In the meantime, however, somebody had reported the jihadi groupie to West Yorkshire Police, who arrested him ‘for publishing material intending to incite racial hatred…West Yorkshire Police take this behaviour seriously, especially in light of the recent events in Paris.’ Why West Yorkshire Police should take this overgrown boy’s behaviour so seriously is unclear, since it appears unlikely that ‘intelligence and planning’ about an IS attack on Manchester would be posted on Facebook from his mum’s back bedroom in Todmorden, and the only ‘hatred’ he seems likely to incite is of himself. Free speech is for fools and fanatics, too.

In the aftermath of Charlie Hebdo and the latest Paris atrocities, it might be tempting to imagine going along with government attempts to crack down on ‘radical’ opinions and censor extremists in our universities. Wouldn’t it be good if we could simply gag them with the UK’s 2015 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act, and kick them off campus and social media, if not out of the country, altogether?

But such simple authoritarian solutions to offensive ideas won’t work. Trying to defend freedom by banning its enemies, to uphold our belief in free speech by censoring those who disagree, would be both wrong in principle and worse than useless in practice. What we need to do is fight them on the intellectual and political beaches, not try to bury the issues in the sand. The big problem Western society faces is not how to stop radical Islamists espousing their beliefs; it is how best to make a compelling case for what ‘we’ are supposed to believe in. Free speech is the potential solution, not the problem.

This should not be seen as a concession to the enemy, either. In the war over the future of the West, free speech is the greatest weapon in civilisation’s armoury. Our culture’s internal arguments about values today are often characterised by confusion rather than clarity. How are these problems to be resolved? Not by being afraid of and trying to exclude some ideas on any side, but by open argument in which all points of view can fight it out. Not by creating ‘safe zones’ and restricting debate to the same blandly conformist opinions, but by letting speech run free in a no-holds-barred debate.

The fight for free speech has been key to the historic struggle that has brought humanity from the caves to something approaching civilisation. It is how we decide what we believe to be the truth. That is why the freedom to question everything has been central to the advance of everything from scientific progress to political democracy. Today we need it more than ever.

One word which has come up in many responses to the Paris attacks is ‘Tolerance’. Yet that powerful notion is often abused. ‘Tolerance’ has been turned into a call for censoring ideas deemed too offensive or extreme, through slogans such as ‘we cannot tolerate intolerance’. This is the opposite of true tolerance, which means tolerating the expression of opinions you fiercely disagree with – in order that you might then challenge them in a battle to the bitter end.

That was the spirit of Voltaire’s famous, attributed, motto about defending to the death your right to say things with which we disagree. Or as he put it in his own words, ‘Think for yourself, and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so, too’. Today by contrast, from the university campus to the post-Paris media, our culture is coming under the influence of those I call the reverse-Voltaires, whose slogan is ‘I know I will despise what you say and I will fight to the end of free speech for my right to stop you saying it’.

This is not about upholding an abstract principle. Free speech remains a practical weapon to deal with the enemies of liberty. The alternative, of seeking to ban them and get the genie back in the bottle, can only store up more trouble and lend them perverse credibility as victims of censorship.

It is a hard truth about free speech that the acid test is always standing up for ‘freedom for the thought that we hate’, at the same time as exercising our own freedom ruthlessly to challenge it. In the end it is only those ideas deemed extreme or offensive that need defending on free-speech grounds. The mainstream can look after itself. Nobody ever tries to ban an opinion for being too mundane.

Should we really be scared of speech from bearded Islamists or hair-teasing Islamophobes? Must we turn the whole of our society into a campus-style ‘safe zone’, where we are all to be protected from offensive words that are viewed as if they were automatic weapons?

If we are not going to defend the civilisation-founding liberty of free speech, then what are we supposed to be fighting for in this war?

If there’s one person who epitomises the University of York’s notable alumni, it’s Harriet Harman.

The Labour MP studied politics there in the early 1970s before becoming a lawyer and, subsequently, a politician who — not long ago — believed that touring Britain in a pink van might dismantle the ‘patriarchy’ (otherwise known as civilisation, to you and I; something men created, but women have long enhanced, benefited from and now co-own).

Needless to say, she was wrong. On paper her approach may have had all the hallmarks of a PR success story, but in today’s climate it simply smacked of tired tactics. Still, by the University of York’s standards, it was probably A-grade stuff. After all, stale with esoteric feminist professors and their wacky take on reality, they too remain locked in Harman’s time-warped mindset.

Earlier this week, the college u-turned plans for a modest International Men’s Day (IMD) meeting — even though it coincided with a parliamentary discussion on the 19 November event.

The reason? Melodramatic ‘outrage’ from the sisterhood.

Yep, rent-a-gob gender warriors — who, I often find, are some of the most privileged people in the world — decided that men responsibly discussing their collective issues (suicide, schools failing boys, fathers’ rights, violent partners, MGM, the life expectancy gap, etc) without feminist supervision was too risky of inducing a riot — or, at the very least, a hashtag.

This was despite the fact that, 24 hours earlier, a fellow student had tragically killed himself.

Still, in an open letter signed by 200 people (many of whom were former students or, more worryingly, incumbent lecturers) they declared: ‘A day that celebrates men’s issues – especially those outlined in the university’s statement – does not combat inequality, but merely amplifies existing, structurally imposed, inequalities [sic]. Men’s issues cannot be approached in the same way as discrimination towards women, because women are structurally unequal to men.’

It continued: ‘We recognise that patriarchy is damaging to both men and women. We do not, however, believe that the university statement engages with these complex issues with sufficient nuance or understanding. The failure of the Equality and Diversity Committee to do so undermines their self-proclaimed commitment to gender equality, and leaves us deeply concerned that their supposed investment in women’s rights is mere lip service.’

In other words: other narratives mustn’t threaten the lucrative status quo they’ve spent years cultivating.

It’s almost like competitive victimhood. Except, err, young women in further education are anything but victims, making feminism increasingly redundant for them.

Granted, this might be bittersweet news if you’re heavily invested in it’s ongoing survival, but, trust me, it’s ultimately a good thing. That’s surely what we’ve been working towards: men and women largely being equal, at least in terms of inequality, or lack thereof.

Perhaps somebody should tell campus feminists this because, judging by their poor level of enlightenment on the matter, they need some serious de-programming.

Earlier this year, spiked published the Free Speech University Rankings (FSUR), which highlighted the scale of the intolerance problem. They found that 80 per cent of UK colleges censor debate and expression; much of this is done by NUS officers preoccupied with Page 3, boisterous sports teams and Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines, rather than anything pertinent.

But why? Certainly not for PR purposes. This latest battle has been humiliating, with the likes of Leeds Becket University — which is hosting its own IMD event - instantly appearing demonstrably younger, smarter and progressive than York by default.

So what gives? Is it more that, like George Orwell once said, the war is not meant to be won, but to be continuous?

Christina Hoff Somers, academic and host of YouTube’s Factual Feminist, thinks so. When I interviewed her earlier this year she told me: ‘In the early 1990s, I — along with several other feminist scholars (Wendy Kaminer, Daphne Patai, Camille Paglia, Mary Lefkowitz, Katie Roiphe, to name a few) — went to battle against the hardline, sex-panicked conspiracy feminists like Andrea Dworkin.

‘My side won the arguments, but their side quietly assumed all of the assistant professorships. So colleges are now full of gender scholars who instruct students on the ravages of the capitalist, hetero-patriachal system and its “rape culture”. Everywhere we hear about “micro-aggressions”, “trigger warnings”, and the toxicity of masculinity.’

At the Battle Of Ideas weekend in London last month, she added: ‘We won the battle, but they won the war. The question now is whether they can hold on to that power…’

The fact there’s already a 1,000-strong petition to reinstate the University of York’s Men’s Day event suggests not. Especially as, rather brilliantly, it was started by a woman.

Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commission finds all Catholic Bishops might have a “case to answer”

A news story in The Australian this morning indicates that the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commission has found a preliminary “case to answer” in relation to a claim of sexual orientation discrimination against not only the Archbishop of Hobart, Julian Porteous, but also “all Australia’s Catholic bishops.”

We have known for some time that Greens political candidate Martine ­Delaney had made a complaint against Archbishop Porteous, but the additional feature of the decision of the Anti-Discrimination Commission is the inclusion of other Catholic Bishops from all around Australia.

The booklet distributed to parents of students at Roman Catholic schools by Archbishop Porteous is entitled, “Don’t Mess with Marriage,” and was produced by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.

The booklet eschews all forms of “unjust discrimination,” and goes on to say, “some suggest that it is unjustly discriminatory not to allow people with same-sex attraction to marry someone of the same sex. Others believe that marriage is an institution uniting a man and a woman. We wish by this pastoral letter to engage with this debate, present the Church’s teaching to the faithful, and explain the position of the Catholic faithful to the wider community.”

It continues: “the traditional view of marriage, which the Church has always supported, is different. It sees marriage as about connecting the values and people in our lives which otherwise have a tendency to get fragmented: sex and love, male and female, sex and babies, parents and children. This view has long influenced our law, literature, art, philosophy, religion and social practices. On this view, marriage includes an emotional union, but it goes further than that. It involves a substantial bodily and spiritual union of a man and a woman.

“Redefining marriage to include same-sex relationships will have far reaching consequences for all of us. The world around us influences the communities in which we live. Cultural and legal norms shape our idea of what the world is like, what’s valuable, and what are appropriate standards of conduct. And this in turn shapes individual choices. That’s one of the main purposes of marriage law: to enable and encourage individuals to form and keep commitments of a certain kind. But if the civil definition of marriage were changed to include ‘same-sex marriage’ then our law and culture would teach that marriage is merely about emotional union of any two (or more?) people.”

The legal status of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, and whether it claims to represent, for example, the views of every Roman Catholic Bishop in Australia, is unclear. But it must also be said that it would be somewhat odd if a Tasmanian tribunal were legally able to exercise authority over Bishops who operate in other states of Australia.

The more important issue, of course, is whether the law will continue to protect the religious freedom of churches and believers to maintain and teach within their own communities the historical views of Christianity about marriage and sexuality.

These issues are brought sharply into focus when some of those supporting “marriage equality” consider this sort of attempted widespread suppression of speech and religious freedom a reasonable policy stance.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Why Islamic violence? Leftist "New Matilda" has no answers

Megan Giles, who wrote the article I excerpt below, has a significant academic background. It is however a solidly Leftist one, so we cannot expect much in the way of balance or academic rigour from her. She mainly seems to be a do-gooder. Anyway, she knows a bit about history. And she parades that history as if it excuses or at least explains the current epidemic of Muslim violence. She spells out the tired old comment that Christians and Christian countries have been violent in the past too. As if nobody knew that!

There she is. Isn't she gorgeous?

But it is not history we have to deal with. It is the present. So why is the present-day world's flood of political violence coming from Muslims?

She seems to think that it is Muslims "getting even" with the West for colonialism. But de-colonization took place around 50 years ago. And, after some initial eruptions, the decolonized world was mostly peaceful. What has suddenly caused it to erupt? And why are Indo-China and other non-Muslim ex-colonies not erupting? And why are the people being killed at the moment overwhelmingly Muslim, rather than the wicked colonists?

Megan has not apparently thought of those questions. Her conventional Leftist hates are all she has to explain anything, whether they fit or not. She is a procrustean.

I and many others point to the way in which ISIS and other violent Muslims are just doing what the Koran says. Megan thinks that cannot be the explanation as Christians have been similarly vicious at times too. But that is a non-sequitur. A particular type of behaviour can arise from many causes. And that normal human selfishness has caused Christians to GO AGAINST New Testament teachings proves nothing. But Muslims don't have to do that. The Jihadis are not going against ANYTHING in their religion. Their deeds and faith are in harmony. So we at least need to note that.

And that makes a difference to what adherents of the two religions hear. Both Mullahs and priests tell their adherents to do as their holy books say. So Christian priests overwhelmingly preach peace and kindness while the Mullahs overwhelmingly preach conquest. And preaching can be influential. Why do it otherwise? For most people -- Christian or Muslim -- it goes in one ear and out the other. They usually accept the wisdom of it but don't act on it. But some do. So on the one hand we have the provision of Christian hospitals and schools while on the other we have gruesome violence.

So what the Koran says is indeed central to the Muslim problem -- because it is what most of the Mullahs preach -- and what the Mullahs preach is influential.

But why is it that we have the upsurge of violence now? Megan does not even attempt to tell us. She had no answers about the causes of Muslim violence at all.

But I think the cause is pretty clear. It is in that history that Megan thinks she knows about. It is a product of ham-fisted European intervention. A skeletal outline:

It all started with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Afghanistan had been a reasonably secular State up until then. But it was part of the Ummah, part of the Muslim world. So it was devout Muslims who chased the Soviets out. The invasion aroused the devout Muslims and eventually made them the only effective force in the land. And they used that power to transform Afghanistan into a Koranic State, a centre of Islamic righteousness and virtue.

And it might have stopped there except for the fact that the Afghan upheavals had attracted a very rich Saudi who became instrumental in defeating the Soviets: Osama bin Laden.

And Koranic virtue does preach attack on the infidel, the kuffar. So after helping to defeat the Soviets, Osama bin Laden was "feeling his oats" and sought new fields to conquer -- and consequently organized the attack on the exceedingly un-Muslim USA, with results we all know about.

And since then it has been push and counter-push. An Afghanistan-enmeshed organization -- Al Qaeda -- attacked the USA so the USA attacked Afghanistan in an attempt to root them out. And once the USA under George Bush was mobilized, they thought that the sabre-rattling coming from Iraq sounded dangerous too so decided that a pre-emptive war there was needed to avoid another "9/11".

But in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the Americans had no reasonable idea of an end-game. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, they assumed that destroying the hostile regime would enable them to give the grateful natives the blessings of democracy. But there is no history of democracy in the Middle East and no hankering for it. Instead there is a 4,000 year history of tyrannies. So the semi-democratic regimes set up by the Americans had no legitimacy in the eyes of the people and consequently had little control over anybody or anything. Instead we have had chaos.

But nobody likes chaos and many influential Muslims of the Middle East have put their hands up as the new tough-guy leader who will restore peace and unity -- and maybe even become the new Caliph. And that is what has been going on. Can it have escaped anyone's notice that 98% of the people dying are Muslims? Much of the the Middle East and North Africa is in the midst of a civil war to determine who the next tyrant will be. The people there want a strong tyrant not a wishy-washy democracy.

And amid those struggles aspiring leaders will do everything they can to acquire legitimacy. And attacks on the West are a good way of doing that. It enables the aspiring tyrants to claim Islamic righteousness. So what constitutes Islamic righteousness does matter. And we find that in the Koran.

And all the excitement of the struggle does catch the attention of people in the Western world whose ancestry is in Muslim lands. And a tiny minority decide that they want a part of the action.So some of those go to Syria, while others attack individuals in their country of residence.

So is it reasonable to target the whole Muslim minority of a Western country in some way? I think it is. But no half measures will do. Tentative measures will just exacerbate the problem. The small minority of radicalized Muslims can do a lot of damage and cause a lot of disruption, social and otherwise. And the populations of Western countries are becoming increasingly intolerant of that, as they should. We wouldn't accept such disruption from anyone else so why should we accept it from young Muslims?

But how can we get violent young Muslims out of our countries? How do we detect in advance who they are? We cannot. So the only way of getting the violent young Muslims out of our countries is to get ALL Muslims out of our countries. I believe it will come to that. Muslim populations ARE a breeding-ground for terrorists and that undisputable fact endangers their continued long-term acceptance in Western countries.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Now listen to Megan. I have omitted her more sulphuric comments about Pauline Hanson:

Hanson states that the New Testament, unlike the Qur’an, is devoid of any violence, as if the relative peace and prosperity enjoyed by the Western world is somehow solely attributed to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Hanson and many others fail to recognise the context of time, place and circumstance that permits the usurping of Quranic verses for such violence.

They fail to scrutinise what it is that separates the millions of Muslims, and millions of others of faith, who can read their sacred scriptures in their historical contexts, from those that totalise and literalise religious doctrine and wrongly champion it as the impetus for their savagery.

In the late 20th century, regimes across the Arab world shaped and utilised Islamic ideologies to solidify and mobilise support against Western liberalism. And so it goes, on and on through history. Past contexts magically transforming to suit present and future contexts.

When we place blame we go directly to the original source, without acknowledging how that source has been manipulated to accommodate contemporary political objectives.

Though all of this, in our current debate, is near-irrelevant. Focusing on the details of religious texts will lead us nowhere since we have, right in front of us, countless examples that help us understand the rise of Islamic State and specific historical, albeit complex and multi-faceted, justifications for North African and Middle Eastern violence.

Indeed what is missing from mainstream debates about contemporary terrorism is the very heavy historical baggage it carries.

Tony Blair has apologised for “mistakes” made during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The US government’s hasty state-building policies after the disbanding of the Iraqi army left thousands of young men angry, armed and unemployed.

Unfortunately, only few commentators will reach back far enough into history to examine the brutal, incendiary and utterly destructive legacy of colonialism in the Middle East to understand contemporary violence.

While ‘we’ in the West have moved on from colonialism and want everyone else to just ‘get over it’, post-colonial states were never given space to – they live its continuity in the neocolonial economic policies of the Washington Consensus and the ubiquity of a militarised national consciousness where violence pervades and reproduces.

The late Algerian psychiatrist Franz Fanon has written passionately on the impact of colonialism on the colonised individual’s psyche, and its propensity for creating violent separatist and regionalist factions, long after independence.

“At the individual level, violence is a cleansing force. It rids the colonized of their inferiority complex, of their passive and despairing attitude… Violence hoists the people up to the level of the leader.”

Despite the horrors of history committed on every continent, our right to anger and grieve over the bloodshed in Paris is doubtless. It must be denounced with the loudest possible voice and responded to with the strongest possible deliberation and vigilance.

Good people lost their lives because they represented the freedom we all hold dear, no matter our race, nationality or religion. Though we must fall short of dismay that Middle Eastern wars have somehow spilled over onto a bystanding Europe caught up in the crossfire.

These wars belong to the Great Powers and they always have. As Gordon Adams has noted, “France has been a central arena for the confrontation between Islam and political-religious Christian Europe for 1,300 years.”

The proceeding centuries were characterised by a vicious brand of colonialism under the guise of exporting a concept of citizenship that was highly exclusionary at home, and anti-Islamic domestic policies leaving hostility an omnipresence weaved through France’s social and political fabric.

Adams states, “France needs to undergo a deep self-examination, and a fundamental revision of the current practice of sidelining its large Muslim population, leaving them disaffected, poorly educated, underemployed, and ripe for recruitment to terrorism.”

All religious texts have the capacity to unite or divide humanity. Our conversation must start centering on the dark, ugly side of human nature and the contexts that breed violent extremists of which our own states are often complicit in.

Social workers lied on under oath and doctored a report as part of an attempted 'cover-up' which favoured five children being taken away from their parents.

Judge Mark Horton said there had been a 'deliberate and calculated' alteration to the dossier and changes had been made by a social worker and a team manager.

Alterations of the report, which was an assessment of the children's parents, had completely changed its tenor and improved the case for removing the children from their parents.

In a family court hearing in Portsmouth, Judge Horton said: 'It is exceptional to find a case in which there has been deliberate and calculated alteration of a report prepared by one social worker in order to make that assessment seem less favourable, by another social worker and the team manager; the withholding of the original report when it was ordered to be disclosed and the parties to the alterations lying on oath one of them twice, in order to try to cover up the existence of the original report.'

The original report of the parents, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had contained 'positives and negatives' and had been balanced.

Proceedings started more than two years ago and the children, aged between three and 16, are currently living with foster parents as part of an interim agreement.

Social workers for Hampshire County Council wanted them to stay in foster care but their parents wanted them returned to their care.

But despite Judge Horton saying the children should stay within the care of the council and approving fostering plans put forward by staff, he was critical of the way the case had been handled.

He said: 'A final decision is long overdue,' said Judge Horton.

'The reasons for the delay have been almost exclusively, the actions of employees of the applicant local authority.'

He went on to say that he had never came across a case like this before.

He said given the 'enormity' of what staff had done and the fact 'they still work as social workers' it was right that they should be named so that members of the public were aware of 'their shortcomings in this case'.

The judge indicated that some staff had left Hampshire council and moved on to other jobs since the case involving the five children had started.

Social worker Sarah Walker Smart had 'lied twice to me on oath', said the judge.

He said he had been told that she had been promoted to a 'team manager' in Hampshire council.

Kim Goode had been Sarah Walker Smart's manager and 'was the person who initiated the wholesale alteration of the original report and who attempted to keep the truth from the parties and me', said the judge.

He said she had gone on to become 'district manager for the Isle of Wight'.

Lisa Humphreys had been Kim Goode's manager, said the judge.

'Her evidence was deeply unimpressive,' he added. 'She made a 'hollow' apology to the parents during her evidence; she regarded a social worker lying on oath as 'foolish' and she failed to accept any personal responsibility for what had gone on under her management.'

He said she had gone on to become assistant director of children's social care with Lambeth Borough Council.

Judge Horton said he had concluded that at one stage the children had been illegally removed from their parents' care - and that a 'fair parenting assessment' had not been carried out.

He said a number of concerns had been raised about the way the children were being looked after by their parents.

The judge said the parents loved their children - and their children loved them.

But despite the quality of those relationships, the parents had 'difficulty parenting the children to the required minimum standard', he said.

The court heard that both parents had experienced 'very difficult childhoods', had an underlying 'chronic' mistrust of professionals and did not want to 'inflict on their children the experiences they themselves had as children', which had led them to failing to provide effective boundaries for the children, according to the judge.

He said this then led to appalling neglect of the older children's educational, emotional and social development and neglect of all of the children's health needs.

Hypocrisy of the cinemas: Film bosses ban Church's video of the Lord's Prayer - yet allow adverts for beer and violent video games to be shown to children

Cinemas have banned an advert encouraging prayer while letting children see commercials selling alcohol and ultraviolent video games.

The 60-second recording of the Lord’s Prayer was scheduled to be shown ahead of screenings of the new Star Wars film before Christmas.

But it was pulled after the company which sells advertising at the Odeon, Cineworld and Vue chains said the Church of England film could be seen as offensive.

Christian and Muslim leaders, MPs and even the outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins said the decision was ridiculous.

The row intensified as it emerged that:

The commercials for alcohol and violent video games are being shown before films aimed at children;

One 12A-rated film, which children of any age can watch with an adult, showed a sexualised perfume advert featuring naked models posing as Adam and Eve;

The prayer advert was pulled even though Digital Cinema Media, which sells screen advertising, had no written policy against it;

The CofE is considering legal action under the Equality Act.

Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said: ‘This advert is about as offensive as a carol service or a church service on Christmas Day.’

He appears in the advert, walking through a park while voicing a line from the Lord’s Prayer. Further lines are spoken by children, police, weightlifters, a farmer, refugees and a gospel choir.

It ends with a link to JustPray.uk, a website featuring prayers submitted via social media. The advert was cleared by the Cinema Advertising Authority and rated U – suitable for all – by the British Board of Film Classification.

CofE spokesman, Reverend Arun Arora, said he was baffled by the ban, adding: ‘In one way the decision of the cinemas is just plain silly but the fact they have insisted upon it makes it rather chilling in terms of limiting free speech.

‘We are hopeful the leadership of Digital Cinema Media would have the strength to recognise they have made a mistake and change their minds.’

Yesterday it emerged that DCM, which controls 80 per cent of UK cinema advertising and is jointly-owned by Odeon and Cineworld, was so eager to host the advert in July that an agent offered the Church a 55 per cent discount.

But on August 3, he claimed the cinemas would refuse to show the clip, saying ‘our hands are tied by these guys’.

Executives later said that DCM had turned the advert down because its policy prevented it airing trailers ‘connected to personal beliefs’.

But yesterday DCM claimed its decision was based on its ‘policy of not accepting political or religious advertising content for use in cinemas’ – pointing to a document on its website as evidence.

Analysis by the Mail reveals this document’s creation date was last Friday – just two days before the farce was revealed by the Mail on Sunday.

DCM did not respond last night to questions about when the policy had been written.

Professor Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist who is an outspoken critic of organised religion, told the Guardian: ‘I strongly object to suppressing the ads on the grounds that they might offend people.

'If anybody is offended by something so trivial as a prayer, they deserve to be offended.’

Marketing expert Sue Primmer said the decision not to run the advert was ‘bonkers’.

She added: ‘Somehow cinemas think it is OK to promote sugar, popcorn and fizzy drinks at children when we have a serious problem with diabetes in this country, but they won’t show an inoffensive and intelligent advert at a time when it is important to reflect on what our great world faiths, including Christianity, are all about.’

Yesterday Odeon and Cineworld screenings of 12A films were packed with teenagers and younger children. But all featured adverts for alcohol, including hard spirits, or violent 18-rated video games.

Australian Scouts to ditch pledge to God, Queen and Australia to become ‘more inclusive’

SCOUTS are set to dump the word “God” in its traditional promise amid claims the ­religious reference was making non-Christian members “uncomfortable” while turning others away from joining.

References to being “cheerful” and “thrifty” are also set to be axed, while a pledge to “doing my duty to Australia” will be canned to be more inclusive to other ­nationalities as part of a major review within the nation’s largest youth movements.

In a move set to irk monarchists, an optional promise to the “Queen of Australia” is also to be permanently given the boot as part of the modernisation of the movement.

Scouting families have until the end of the year to complete a survey on the new wording of the movement’s new “law and promise” that will then be recited by members from mid-2016.

A message posted on its website by Scouts Australia chief commissioner Chris Bates said the change of words was about making the Scouts more inclusive.

The existing promise includes the line “I promise that I will do my best to do my duty to my God and to the Queen of Australia”.

However, some younger Scouts were already reciting an adapted version of the promise, contributing to a “silo-effect” between its sections, Mr Bates said.

He said there was a strong feeling some of the wording was not consistent with members’ beliefs or their current use of language. “The result is we are either losing members or some of our members are using words they don’t actually believe in,” he said.

“After much research and discussion, we have provided some new wording for a revitalised promise and law that we believe young Australians will find easier to commit to, and to follow.”

One of the proposed ­options for the new promise includes a reference to being “true to my spiritual beliefs”.

The revised law ditches the need for Scouts to be cheerful, thrifty, courageous and helpful, while retaining the need to be friendly, honest, fair, loyal and trustworthy.

Founded in 1958, Scouts Australia is regarded as the largest youth movement in the nation with almost 70,000 members. Although the ­organisation is open to members of all religious faiths, those who refuse to make the promise to God are not ­allowed to become members.

The Scouts Youth Program Review said feedback from members found many parents preferred non-­religious activities for their children “and have expressed discomfort with the use of the word ‘God’.”

Scouts had the option to ditch the line about “doing my duty to the Queen” a decade ago, with only a few branches retaining the reference. But the review said most members felt the phrase needed to change, with less than 12 per cent wanting it retained.

As for revising the law, young people no longer used words such as “thrifty”. It said scrapping the reference to “Australia” in the promise was in recognition of the global nature of scouting, it said.

“The removal of direct reference of Australia was also seen as recognition of the global nature of Scouting, and making the promise more ­inclusive for citizens of other nations,” the review said.

Americans rejected him in the 2004 Presidential election but he is still hanging around like a bad smell

There's an age old quote often attributed to Mark Twain that says "better to be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." Unfortunately, John Kerry's role as Secretary of State compels him to speak publicly on behalf of the United States, and he's spent the last several months sweeping up those last few grains of skepticism about his intellectual limits. As Jonah Bennett at the Daily Caller notes:

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry remarked Tuesday that the attacks on Charlie Hebdo are much more understandable and have a better rationale than the Friday Paris attacks.

Kerry flew to France following the G20 talks in Turkey and delivered remarks at the U.S. embassy on the Paris attacks, which left 129 dead, CBS News reports.

“There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that,” Kerry said. “There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of – not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, ‘Okay, they’re really angry because of this and that.’ This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate.”

Kerry's response is rife with the moral relativism and unseriousness that underlies modern liberalism. It's an incoherent view that is both condescending and generous. "In our Western society, we abhor violent retaliation for speech, but we understand if that's not how you do things in the Islamic world, and we're sorry if our insensitivity to your cultural preferences offends you." As Charles Cooke at the National Review put it:

Implicit in Kerry’s reasoning is the assumption that the perpetrators of the attacks against Charlie Hebdo had a clear purpose whereas the perpetrators of last week’s abomination did not. Or, as he put it, that in one case the killers were “really angry because of this and that,” but that in the other they were not.

But this isn’t true. In fact, both set of attackers gave reasons. With Charlie Hebdo, the killers’ purported motive was revenge against ”blasphemous” expression; in Paris last week, it was disgust at Paris’s reputation for “obscenity.” In consequence, there are only two choices here: Option 1) That John Kerry believes that killing people for speaking rudely is more understandable than killing them for being secular; or Option 2) That John Kerry doesn’t actually know what the most recent attackers used as their justification (and also doesn’t remember that at the same time as the Charlie Hebdo assassinations, associated gunmen targeted a market simply because its owners were Jews).

Although Kerry's logic is muddled, one thing is quite clear: this is an unserious man who is completely unfit to be America's Secretary of State.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Background

The most beautiful woman in the world? I think she was. Yes: It's Agnetha Fältskog

A beautiful baby is king -- with blue eyes, blond hair and white skin. How incorrect can you get?

Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair

Enough said

A face of Leftist hate: Cory Booker, (D-NJ)

There really is an actress named Donna Air. She seems a pleasant enough woman, though

What feminism has wrought:

There's actually some wisdom there. The dreamy lady says she is holding out for someone who meets her standards. The other lady reasonably replies "There's nobody there". Standards can be unrealistically high and feminists have laboured mightily to make them so

Some bright spark occasionally decides that Leftism is feminine and conservatism is masculine. That totally misses the point. If true, how come the vote in American presidential elections usually shows something close to a 50/50 split between men and women? And in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won 53 percent of white women, despite allegations focused on his past treatment of some women.

Political correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners

Political Correctness is as big a threat to free speech as Communism and Fascism. All 3 were/are socialist.

The problem with minorities is not race but culture. For instance, many American black males fit in well with the majority culture. They go to college, work legally for their living, marry and support the mother of their children, go to church, abstain from crime and are considerate towards others. Who could reasonably object to such people? It is people who subscribe to minority cultures -- black, Latino or Muslim -- who can give rise to concern. If antisocial attitudes and/or behaviour become pervasive among a group, however, policies may reasonably devised to deal with that group as a whole

Black lives DON'T matter -- to other blacks. The leading cause of death among young black males is attack by other young black males

Leftist logic: There are allegedly no distinctions between groups of humans, yet we're still supposed to celebrate diversity.

Identity politics is a form of racism

'White Privilege'. .. Oh yes. .. That was abundant in the Irish potato famines. ... And in the Scottish Highland Clearances. ...And in transportations to Australia. ... And in Workhouses. ... 'White privilege' was absolutely RIFE!

Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves. Leftist motivations are fundamentally Fascist. They want to "fundamentally transform" the lives of their fellow citizens, which is as authoritarian as you can get. We saw where it led in Russia and China. The "compassion" that Leftists parade is just a cloak for their ghastly real motivations

Occasionally I put up on this blog complaints about the privileged position of homosexuals in today's world. I look forward to the day when the pendulum swings back and homosexuals are treated as equals before the law. To a simple Leftist mind, that makes me "homophobic", even though I have no fear of any kind of homosexuals.

But I thought it might be useful for me to point out a few things. For a start, I am not unwise enough to say that some of my best friends are homosexual. None are, in fact. Though there are two homosexuals in my normal social circle whom I get on well with and whom I think well of.

Of possible relevance: My late sister was a homosexual; I loved Liberace's sense of humour and I thought that Robert Helpmann was marvellous as Don Quixote in the Nureyev ballet of that name.

One may say that the person who gets in trouble with drugs is just as dumb without them

I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.

I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take children away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass

The genetics of crime: I have been pointing out for some time the evidence that there is a substantial genetic element in criminality. Some people are born bad. See here, here, here, here (DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12581) and here, for instance"

Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"

Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!

Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.

So why do Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" when backed into a rhetorical corner? They say it because that is the predominant conclusion of analytic philosophers. And, as Keynes said: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”

Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".

One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.

It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.

A modern feminist complains: "We are so far from “having it all” that “we barely even have a slice of the pie, which we probably baked ourselves while sobbing into the pastry at 4am”."

Patriotism does NOT in general go with hostilty towards others. See e.g. here and here and even here ("Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia: A Cross-Cultural Study" by anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan. In Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 5, December 2001).

The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin

"An objection I hear frequently is: ‘Why should we tolerate intolerance?’ The assumption is that tolerating views that you don’t agree with is like a gift, an act of kindness. It suggests we’re doing people a favour by tolerating their view. My argument is that tolerance is vital to us, to you and I, because it’s actually the presupposition of all our freedoms. You cannot be free in any meaningful sense unless there is a recognition that we are free to act on our beliefs, we’re free to think what we want and express ourselves freely. Unless we have that freedom, all those other freedoms that we have on paper mean nothing" -- SOURCE

Although it is a popular traditional chant, the "Kol Nidre" should be abandoned by modern Jewish congregations. It was totally understandable where it originated in the Middle Ages but is morally obnoxious in the modern world and vivid "proof" of all sorts of antisemitic stereotypes

What the Bible says about homosexuality:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; It is abomination" -- Lev. 18:22

In his great diatribe against the pagan Romans, the apostle Paul included homosexuality among their sins:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" -- Romans 1:26,27,32.

So churches that condone homosexuality are clearly post-Christian

Although I am an atheist, I have great respect for the wisdom of ancient times as collected in the Bible. And its condemnation of homosexuality makes considerable sense to me. In an era when family values are under constant assault, such a return to the basics could be helpful. Nonetheless, I approve of St. Paul's advice in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans that it is for God to punish them, not us. In secular terms, homosexuality between consenting adults in private should not be penalized but nor should it be promoted or praised. In Christian terms, "Gay pride" is of the Devil

The homosexuals of Gibeah (Judges 19 & 20) set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals. Are we seeing a related process in the woes presently being experienced by the amoral Western world? Note that there was one Western country that was not affected by the global financial crisis and subsequently had no debt problems: Australia. In September 2012 the Australian federal parliament considered a bill to implement homosexual marriage. It was rejected by a large majority -- including members from both major political parties. The tide turned in 2017, however, with a public vote authorizing homosexual marriage in Australia

Religion is deeply human. The recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe suggest that it was religion not farming that gave birth to civilization. Early civilizations were at any rate all very religious. Atheism is mainly a very modern development and is even now very much a minority opinion

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

I think it's not unreasonable to see Islam as the religion of the Devil. Any religion that loves death or leads to parents rejoicing when their children blow themselves up is surely of the Devil -- however you conceive of the Devil. Whether he is a man in a red suit with horns and a tail, a fallen spirit being, or simply the evil side of human nature hardly matters. In all cases Islam is clearly anti-life and only the Devil or his disciples could rejoice in that.

And there surely could be few lower forms of human behaviour than to give abuse and harm in return for help. The compassionate practices of countries with Christian traditions have led many such countries to give a new home to Muslim refugees and seekers after a better life. It's basic humanity that such kindness should attract gratitude and appreciation. But do Muslims appreciate it? They most commonly show contempt for the countries and societies concerned. That's another sign of Satanic influence.

And how's this for demonic thinking?: "Asian father whose daughter drowned in Dubai sea 'stopped lifeguards from saving her because he didn't want her touched and dishonoured by strange men'

Islamic terrorism isn’t a perversion of Islam. It’s the implementation of Islam. It is not a religion of the persecuted, but the persecutors. Its theology is violent supremacism.

And where Muslims tell us that they love death, the great Christian celebration is of the birth of a baby -- the monogenes theos (only begotten god) as John 1:18 describes it in the original Greek -- Christmas!

No wonder so many Muslims are hostile and angry. They have little companionship from women and not even any companionship from dogs -- which are emotionally important in most other cultures. Dogs are "unclean"

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename the following: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20121106-1520/jonjayray.comuv.com/

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here